


Inevitability

by prairiecrow



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-21
Updated: 2012-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-29 21:59:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reflection. Resistance. Regret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inevitability

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place shortly before the S2 episode "Tribunal".

Miles Edward O'Brien had never been a man who suffered fools gladly, regardless of their bluster in public life or the number of Starfleet pips on their collars. He'd had plenty of practice from an early age in dealing with his Uncle Matthew, who'd lacked the good sense God had seen fit to give a mushroom, and as he'd gotten older his verbal scraps with his mother's brother had worsened to the point where nobody on that side of the family would invite them to the same dinners anymore. No, he certainly wasn't one to hesitate to call a spade a bloody shovel, but he also knew when it was in his best interests to keep his mouth shut.

And thus it came to pass that when he'd made the acquaintance of Lieutenant Julian Bashir, Chief Medical Officer of Deep Space Nine and so wet behind the ears that he left a trail on the ground wherever he walked, Miles had pasted a tight little smile on his face and confined his responses to "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" as much as he possibly could. Watching the long-limbed gack swan around as if he were God's own gift to the service, Miles had found his initial intuition that the man was a right fool amply confirmed and vowed to stay as far away from him as their positions on DS9's senior staff would permit. He had troubles enough in his life without letting a jammy client like  _that_  get within shouting distance of himself or his family.

To be sure, Bashir was an absolute genius when it came to anything medical, and his pursuit of Jadzia Dax provided plenty of amusement for the rest of the senior staff over drinks in Quark's. He was a lot like a puppy, they all agreed: friendly enough, and always upbeat, but prone to throw himself at things willy-nilly and slobber all over them in his happy enthusiasm. There were the makings of a good officer there if he'd just learn from experience, although the vote was divided over whether he was capable of absorbing that kind of education in the long run. Miles, with the example of Uncle Matt in mind, was among the less sanguine.

But there was no questioning Bashir's bravery and ability to think quickly under fire, as was demonstrated when he saved three ambassadors from a fiery death in a blocked corridor of the station. Nor could it be denied that he genuinely cared for the patients he treated, and was so kind-hearted that he'd go out of his way to help anyone in need who caught his attention, as Jadzia affirmed he'd done when he started seeing Garak, the Cardassian tailor and undercover spy, for lunch on a weekly basis. She was of the opinion he'd seen a loneliness in Garak that he was seeking to alleviate; Miles's opinion, that he was just mesmerized by the Cardie's aura of danger and mystery, was less charitable to Bashir but, he felt, far more realistic. By then he'd gotten to know Bashir a little better — been on a mission to Bajor with him, in fact, and spent several days in his company — and… 

Well. Miles knew about fools, but he also knew a thing or two about puppies. His youngest aunt on his father's side had gotten one when Miles was sixteen during a summer he'd spent at their country house, and he clearly remembered its yelping and its bumbling attempts to lick faces and its ability to find and chew to pieces any shoe within a kilometre's radius… but he also remembered that after a while he'd held out his arms when it came running, and laughed while it wriggled ecstatically and slopped its warm pink tongue all over his lips and cheeks. It took a man of exceptionally hard heart to resist puppy ways, and in that respect Bashir was equally difficult to keep at a suitable distance. In time Miles found himself cautiously happy to see the doctor when they chanced to meet in a corridor or on the Promenade, and more and more often he found himself roped into coffee with the enthusiastic young man, watching all the different emotions chase themselves across his lean brown face and curious in spite of himself to see just where they were going to lead next.

He started to look round every corner for the puppy, and realized that he'd reached a point of no return when Bashir invited himself to enjoy Miles's carefully constructed racquetball court — and Miles didn't thrown him out on his ear. When had this lanky, grinning boy become his  _friend?_  He was at a loss to understand it, but he couldn't deny it either, especially after they'd faced death together at the hands of the T'lani and the Kelleruns and barely escaped with their lives. Their conversations during that little adventure fully revealed to him that there was a fine lad inside the gormless exterior, and a bold and surprisingly thoughtful mind beneath the irritating surface habits — and above all, an earnest young man who considered them friends already. 

When a child comes right up to you and puts his hand in yours, how do you shove him away and tell him to be off somewhere else, where somebody actually cares about him? Miles O'Brien certainly couldn't, not only because Julian was really quite appealing once you got past all the flash, but also because there was someone else waiting to drink up all that extra time and attention.

Miles knew as much about snakes as he did about puppies — more, in fact, because he'd killed plenty of them in his time and he'd seen them inject their venom into scores of good men and women. Catching sight of Julian strolling down the Promenade with Garak, or seeing the two of them arguing over one of their lunches, Miles didn't miss the undercurrent behind the Cardie's smile, the flicker of a forked tongue and the unblinking gaze of a cobra swaying seductively in front of its prey. Nor did he miss the point of Garak's interest in Julian: sure, some of it was political, keeping a channel open to Starfleet through its most naive officer on site, but the part that revealed itself in teasing smiles and long smouldering glances was anything but abstract in nature. 

 _He wants him_ , Miles would think, watching Julian's answering smile and wondering if the boy understood even half of the game he was playing, and reflecting that someone should give him a good stiff lecture on the dangers of tickling a rattlesnake under the chin. 

 _He wants him._  That was undeniable. Even Quark had set up a betting pool based on when Garak would make his move, or (much less likely) when Julian would make his. What Miles wished he could deny was that as time went on, the outcome of the pool mattered more and more on a personal level: not just because he thought it would be spectacularly bad news for Julian if he took up with a Cardassian spy and he didn't want to see his friend get hurt, but because more and more often catching sight of the two of them and the secret smiles they shared was prompting an ugly niggle of emotion deep in Mile's breast, a shudder of hot feeling that he wanted to crush but couldn't seem to no matter how hard he tried. He didn't think that Julian was sleeping with Garak, but the prospect that he one day  _might_  was…

Miles didn't want it to matter. He told himself over and over again that it didn't matter, that Julian was a big boy and that if he went off into a rhapsodic litany of Garak's finer points every time the subject came up it was no skin off of Miles's nose. He told himself, mean-spiritedly, that maybe a good solid bite was just what Julian needed to wake him up to realities of a universe where not everybody wanted to be his friend.

Trouble was, men like Garak  _never_  simply bit. They kissed, and licked, and nipped in a way that sent hot and cold shivers down the spine, and you never noticed the tiny doses of poison until it was too late.

But Miles couldn't talk about that with Julian. It wasn't his place, and increasingly the subject simply hit too close to home for comfort. What was he supposed to say?  _Stop seeing Garak, because I'm uncomfortable just thinking about the two of you sitting so close together, looking into each other's eyes and forgetting about everybody else?_  The subtextual whisper,  _When I want you to be looking at me that way instead,_  mercifully didn't make it to the surface very often, but when it did he felt miserable about it for hours afterwards.

He couldn't talk about it, so he didn't, even when Julian went haring off to Cardassian space in pursuit of a retired spymaster and every alarm in Miles's head went off at once, because risking torture and death that way wasn't something one usually did for a guy he had lunch with once a week. He didn't say anything when Julian came back and saved Garak's life, and he didn't say anything the week after when he saw them at lunch and also saw the air between them burn with subliminal radiance, practically incandescent with promise and meaning.

The dread in his heart coalesced into dark certainty and unspeakable grief, because clearly Garak had finally gotten what he desired — and he, Miles O'Brien, happily married to a wonderful woman and father to a darling daughter, had lost something he never should have wanted in the first place.

And fool that he was, he could only watch silently while it tore him relentlessly to pieces.

THE END


End file.
